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Palestinian Leader's Loyalists Win Local Elections, including Some in Gaza

A Palestinian man votes during the municipal election at a polling station in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip April 25, 2026. REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
A Palestinian man votes during the municipal election at a polling station in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip April 25, 2026. REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
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Palestinian Leader's Loyalists Win Local Elections, including Some in Gaza

A Palestinian man votes during the municipal election at a polling station in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip April 25, 2026. REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
A Palestinian man votes during the municipal election at a polling station in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip April 25, 2026. REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa

Loyalists of President Mahmoud Abbas won most races in Palestinian municipal elections, election officials said on Sunday, in a vote that for the first time in nearly two decades included a city in the Gaza Strip run by rival Hamas.

Saturday’s ballot marked the first elections of any kind in Gaza since 2006 and the first Palestinian polls since the Gaza war began more than two years ago with Hamas' cross-border attack on southern Israel.

Abbas' West Bank–based Palestinian Authority (PA) said the inclusion of the Gaza city Deir al-Balah, which suffered less damage than other areas of the coastal territory during the war, was intended to show that Gaza was an inseparable part of a future Palestinian state.

The elections, in which voter turnout was low, had been held "at a highly sensitive moment amid complex challenges and exceptional circumstances", Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa said as results were announced on Sunday.

But they represented "an important first step in a broader national process aimed at strengthening democratic life ... and ultimately achieving the unity of the land", he said.

POSSIBLE INDICATOR OF HAMAS SUPPORT

Hamas, which ousted the PA from Gaza in 2007, did not formally nominate candidates in Gaza and boycotted the race in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where Fatah's victory was widely expected.

But some candidates on one of the Deir al-Balah lists were widely seen by residents and analysts as aligned with the movement, making the vote a potential indicator of support for the Islamist group.

Preliminary results showed that the list, known as Deir al-Balah Brings Us Together, won only two of the 15 seats contested in Gaza.

The Nahdat Deir al-Balah list, backed by Abbas' Fatah party and the Western-backed PA, secured six seats. The remaining seats were won by two other Gaza-based groups, Future of Deir al-Balah and Peace and Building, not affiliated with either faction.

Abbas loyalists swept the election in the West Bank, running unchallenged in many seats.

"By electing figures linked to Fatah, voters appear to be seeking unrestricted international support for municipal governance and a gradual political shift that could extend beyond the local level," said Palestinian political analyst Reham Ouda.

The recent war has left much of Gaza reduced to rubble, with many residents displaced and focused on survival. Israel has continued conducting strikes despite an October ceasefire.

In Gaza voter turnout reached just 23%, while in the West Bank it was 56%, according to Chairman of the Central Elections Commission Rami al-Hamdallah.

Al-Hamdallah said some of the ballot boxes and voting equipment did not make it into the enclave because of Israeli security restrictions, though those challenges were overcome.

Hamas' Gaza spokesperson, Hazem Qassem, downplayed the significance of the election results, saying that they had no impact on wider national issues.

 

 

 

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Arab World

UN: Drone Attack Hits Sudan Aid Truck

Shops operate beneath a war-damaged building in Omdurman, on the outskirts of Khartoum, Sudan, Thursday, April 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)
Shops operate beneath a war-damaged building in Omdurman, on the outskirts of Khartoum, Sudan, Thursday, April 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)
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UN: Drone Attack Hits Sudan Aid Truck

Shops operate beneath a war-damaged building in Omdurman, on the outskirts of Khartoum, Sudan, Thursday, April 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)
Shops operate beneath a war-damaged building in Omdurman, on the outskirts of Khartoum, Sudan, Thursday, April 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

A drone attack hit an aid truck in Sudan's North Darfur state, destroying all the supplies on board, the UN refugee agency said on Sunday, without identifying who was responsible.

Drone strikes by both the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), who have been locked in a brutal war since April 2023, have escalated in recent months, often killing dozens at a time.

The UNHCR-operated vehicle "came under drone attack" on Friday while transporting emergency shelter kits to Tawila, home to more than 700,000 displaced people who fled fighting elsewhere in the western Darfur region, AFP quoted the agency as saying.

The driver escaped unhurt, but all supplies were destroyed in the resulting fire, it added.

UNHCR condemned the attack, warning that it would "leave 1,314 families living in desperate conditions in Tawila without shelter" at a time when humanitarian needs are already overwhelming.

More than 127,000 people fled El-Fasher, North Darfur's capital and the army's last stronghold in the region, after it fell to paramilitary forces in October, with reports of mass killings, sexual violence, looting and rape following the takeover.

Fighting has since spread to neighboring Kordofan, now the main theatre of the war, and the southeastern Blue Nile state, raising fears of a longer and increasingly fragmented conflict.

According to the UN, nearly 700 civilians have been killed in drone strikes by both sides since January alone.

UNHCR voiced "deep concern" over the rising use of drones, calling repeated attacks on humanitarian operations "particularly abhorrent".

According to an assessment by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization, 28.9 million people, around 62 percent of Sudan's population, are facing acute food insecurity.

That includes 10.2 million who face severe food insecurity, in particular in the wider Darfur region and South Kordofan state.

Famine was declared last year in El-Fasher and Kadugli, the capital of South Kordofan, with 20 other areas at risk in Darfur and Kordofan, a UN-backed assessment found.

The conflict has already killed tens of thousands, uprooted over 11 million and created the world's largest displacement and hunger crises.

Arab World

Arab Parliament Condemns Attack Targeting Two Border Posts in Kuwait

Arab Parliament logo
Arab Parliament logo
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Arab Parliament Condemns Attack Targeting Two Border Posts in Kuwait

Arab Parliament logo
Arab Parliament logo

Arab Parliament Speaker Mohammed Al-Yamahi has condemned the blatant attack that targeted two sites at the northern land border posts of Kuwait using two explosive-laden drones coming from Iraq, SPA reported.

In a statement, Al-Yamahi stressed the Arab Parliament’s condemnation and categorical rejection of any infringement on the sovereignty of Kuwait or any attempt to undermine its security and stability.

He stressed the Arab Parliament’s full solidarity and support for Kuwait in confronting such attacks, reiterating its backing for all measures taken to protect its security and noting that the security of Kuwait is an integral part of Arab national security.

Arab World

Syria’s First Public Trial of Assad-era Officials Opens in Damascus

Judges attend a trial session of Atef Najib, a brigadier general and former head of the Political Security Department in Daraa during Syria's ousted President Bashar al-Assad's rule, who is accused of committing war crimes, at the Palace of Justice, in Damascus, Syria, April 26, 2026. REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi
Judges attend a trial session of Atef Najib, a brigadier general and former head of the Political Security Department in Daraa during Syria's ousted President Bashar al-Assad's rule, who is accused of committing war crimes, at the Palace of Justice, in Damascus, Syria, April 26, 2026. REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi
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Syria’s First Public Trial of Assad-era Officials Opens in Damascus

Judges attend a trial session of Atef Najib, a brigadier general and former head of the Political Security Department in Daraa during Syria's ousted President Bashar al-Assad's rule, who is accused of committing war crimes, at the Palace of Justice, in Damascus, Syria, April 26, 2026. REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi
Judges attend a trial session of Atef Najib, a brigadier general and former head of the Political Security Department in Daraa during Syria's ousted President Bashar al-Assad's rule, who is accused of committing war crimes, at the Palace of Justice, in Damascus, Syria, April 26, 2026. REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi

The first public trial in Syria of officials linked to the rule of former President Bashar Assad opened in Damascus Sunday.

Atef Najib, a former Syrian army brigadier general who was head of the Political Security Branch in southern Syria's Daraa province under Assad and who is also a cousin of the former president, appeared in the courtroom to face charges related to “crimes against the Syrian people,” state-run news agency SANA reported.

Najib was in that position in 2011 when teenagers who scrawled anti-government graffiti on a school wall in Daraa were arrested and tortured. The case became a catalyst for mass protests against the repressive policies of Assad's government security forces.

The protests were met by a brutal government crackdown and spiraled into a 14-year civil war that ended with Assad's ouster in December 2024 in a lightning rebel offensive. Assad fled to Russia, while most members of his inner circle also escaped Syria.

Assad himself and his brother, Maher, former commander of the Syrian military's 4th Armored Division — which Syrian opposition activists have accused of killings, torture, extortion and drug trafficking, in addition to running its own detention centers — were charged in absentia, along with a number of other former high-ranking security officials.

Najib was the only one of the defendants who was arrested and present in person in court Sunday for a preparatory session in the trial, which will continue next month.

Crowds gathered outside the courthouse to celebrate.

The government of interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa has faced criticism over delays in launching a promised transitional justice process. Syria is struggling to heal following 14 years of civil war that left an estimated half a million people dead, millions more displaced, and the country battered and divided.

Authorities now appear to be moving more aggressively to prosecute officials linked to Assad.

Syrian authorities on Friday arrested Amjad Yousef, a former intelligence officer who appeared in a video leaked four years ago that purportedly showed him and his comrades executing dozens of blindfolded and shackled prisoners in the Damascus suburb of Tadamon during the country’s civil war.